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Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Malian National guards patrol on January 16, 2013 at a military airbase in Bamako as president Dioncounda Traore visit French troops. French troops battled Islamist rebels in Mali today in a war which escalated as Al Qaeda-linked fighters claimed to have taken 41 foreigners hostage in a retaliatory attack in neighbouring Algeria. AFP PHOTO / ISSOUF SANOGO (Photo credit should read ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images)